Odd question perhaps, but,you have seen those experiments they do when designing cars to make the air stream around the car visible, in order to check air resistance etc?
Has anyone done that with a flute & its embouchure? I’d be fascinated to know what pattern of air swirls & vibrations make the sound, as I can’t quite visualise it. Why does splitting a stream of air near a holey tube make such a sound? Any physics links out there??
Julia C 
There certainly have been such experiments. Somewhere on the web there are pictures. I’ll see if I can find the reference…check Terry McGee’s site for more info.
Jack
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/music/flute.html
and it links to:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/waves/opecol.html#c2
You need to scroll down the pages or you’ll miss some good stuff. There’s also video. Clicking on the links takes you deeper into the physics.
hope this helps!
Edited to add:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/music/edge.html#c1
Which is also of interest to whistlers
The basic reference was:
Howe, M.S., 1975. Contributions to the theory of aerodynamic sound, with application to excess jet noise and theory of the flute.Journal of Fluid Mechanics 71, 625
But I know I’ve seen the actual photos somewhere on the web…
So Jack, is there a large amount of air flow from the embochure to the foot fo the flute or is it mainly a standing wave with air molecules oscillating back and forth between the nodes?
I need to dig out my college physics books, it’s been to long. Once upon a time I derived Maxwell’s equations from first principals, now I have trouble doing basic integrals.
Not much flow that way…diffusion mostly and mixing due to turbulence…the flow in the tube is pretty much back and forth.
(still looking for the pictures)
Here’s some interesting articles though..
http://www.shakuhachi.com/K-BroadAI.html
http://iwk.mdw.ac.at/Forschung/pdf_dateien/2003e_WK-HK_AAAA_WaveFluidProp.pdf
Cool, that’s pretty much what I thought.
BTW, on an unrelated topic, using the gel cyanoacrylate on my banjo nut worked well. It took a couple tries to get the depth right but now it’s dead on. Thanks!
Yes. The traditional research method was to use cigarrete smoke. 
I thought the physicists would know all about this… 
Dear Jack gary Eddie & Glauber,
Just arrived home to find that my PC runneth over with helpful info and great links. Can’t thank you enough. Now to feed my curiosity.
Re: cigarette smoke - you’d think an ex smoker would have thought of that - I must have really got smoking out of my system these days!
1,000 thanks guys- now for the science bit
Julia C 